


Hold On Loosely, But Don't Let Go

by Leah



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Kiss, Holding, Hugging, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leah/pseuds/Leah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the times Sam needed Dean, and just how it affected both of the Winchester boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold On Loosely, But Don't Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Hold On Loosely" by 38 Special.
> 
> This is my first Wincest fanfiction, and I hope you like it! Tell me what you think! Thanks for stopping by :)

The first time Dean is conscious of his Sammy being in danger, he is nine years old, and Sam is gasping on the bed beside him. His wiry five-year-old limbs thrash under the covers, intensifying his panic as he realizes that not only can’t he breathe, but he can’t move either. For a split second, Dean curses his father for leaving him alone with Sammy when, clearly, he is woefully unprepared. 

A strangled, “Dee,” escapes Sam’s lips, as Dean finally throws the blankets away from Sam’s body. Sam’s skinny arms stop moving frantically and, instead, begin searching for Dean, stretching his small fingers until the skin over his knuckles pulls tight, straining white against the bones underneath.

“Sammy,” Dean whispers, smoothing Sam’s hair against his forehead. “What’s wrong? How do I fix it, Sammy?” He can hear his voice shaking, and he chastises himself, trying to force a courage that is distinctly lacking in his nine-year-old self to the front.  
Sam wheezes for a moment, trying to piece together what’s going on while also doing his best to ignore the growing pain in his chest. Giving up on the prospect of talking, Sam simply wraps his arms around Dean’s chest, crawling into his lap. 

Dean is at a loss once again and does the only thing he knows he can: hold Sammy. While Sam gasps, his tiny chest heaving against Dean’s arms, Dean gently flattens the flyaway strands of hair at the nape of Sam’s neck. “Shh, Sammy,” Dean whispers, long after Sam falls silent, clearly asleep. 

Dean can’t relax, though, as his heart pounds in his chest, beating savagely against his ribs. His mind reels as he tries to decide what to do. Was this worth calling Dad, and pulling him away from his job? What will happen to Sam if he doesn’t do anything?  
Sam wiggles in his lap, snorting a sleepy kind of snort, reminding Dean of the here-and-now Sammy instead of the what-if Sammy. He lies down with Sam’s arms still wrapped around his chest and falls asleep to the sound of Sam breathing easy once again. 

~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Sam is a rambunctious thirteen year old, who has long ago ditched the inhaler his father provided soon after the first attack on his lungs. His brown hair is constantly shaggy, growing over his eyes, and he’s picked up the adorable habit of shaking it out of his face. 

Dean’s not sure exactly when his baby brother turned into an almost-teenager, complete with the too-long limbs and angsty mood swings, but he loves him just the same, admiring the way Sam will grow up to be a great hunter, if his muscles have anything to say about it. 

Dean stumbles in to the hotel room, now with two beds, reeking of cheap perfume and even cheaper beer, only to find Sam curled up in one of the comforters, looking positively pathetic. Responding to the odd panic rising in his chest, Dean throws off his coat and, with it, most of the offending odor. He clambers onto the bed, sitting with his crisscrossed knees pressing gently against his back. 

“Sammy?” Dean asks, his fingers gently tracing the curve of Sam’s shoulder under the blanket.

“’M not Sammy,” Sam grumbles back, curling into a tighter ball. “Leave me alone, Dean.” 

Dean doesn’t move, and, instead, rests his hand on Sam’s shoulder, tugging at the edge of the blanket tucked under Sam’s head. “C’mon, Sam,” Dean murmurs, letting his fingers slip under the bedspread to stroke Sam’s hair. “What’s goin’ on?”

Sam throws the covers off the top half of his body in one violent motion, rolling onto his back. For a moment, he just looks at Dean, taking in the lean muscles under his plaid button-up and his playfully messy hair and wanting to run his fingers through it. Sam shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. 

“Hmm?” Dean prompts, stroking Sam’s red cheek lightly.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam spits, allowing himself to wallow in self-hatred for a moment before noticing the look in Dean’s clouded eyes. It’s an odd mixture of his own self-loathing and sadness, and it tugs at Sam’s insides. “It’s just girls, I guess,” Sam spills, his voice softer than before. 

“Girls,” Dean echoes, letting out one of his breathy snorts that Sam wishes he could emulate. “What happened?”

Dean feels his heart melt a little when Sam’s lip twitches with the effort of not crying, and he scoots closer to Sam, lifting up his head and laying it back in his own lap. Dean begins running his long fingers through Sam’s shaggy hair, sorting out any knots he happens to find, murmuring a steady chorus of things like, “Sammy. Who needs girls? They’re not that great.”

“I just asked if she wanted to go to the Halloween Dance with me,” Sam whimpers, adjusting himself so he can look at Dean and see the reassurance on his face. “And she laughed at me. Right there, in front of Mr. Grant’s room. In front of everyone.”

“What a bitch,” Dean growls, partly to avoid tracking down a thirteen year old girl and punching her in the face and partly to make Sam chuckle. “I’m serious, Sam. Any girl who acts like that when a freakin’ god asks them to a Halloween Dance, you don’t want nothin’ to do with ‘em.” 

“No one thinks I’m a god except you, Dean,” Sam grumbles, letting a single tear escape his eye, against his will. He hastily wipes it away, hoping Dean didn’t see, afraid that Dean would laugh, just like Olivia had earlier, and make fun of him for being such a baby. 

Dean did, in fact, see it, but, instead of walking out on Sam, he leans down and presses a kiss to Sam’s forehead. “Sammy, girls suck,” Dean says after a moment, running his hands over Sam’s arm again. “Let’s have pizza and a movie, so we don’t have to think about those nasty, horrible monsters.”

Sam laughs, finally, and sits up. Dean misses the weight of Sam’s head on his legs immediately. “That’ll be fun,” Sam concedes, dialing the number of the local pizza place on the hotel phone. 

Thirty minutes later, stuffed to bursting, Sam and Dean lounge on the couch, watching reruns of The Simpsons. Well, Sam is watching the show, while Dean is keeping his eyes on Sam, watching the familiar way his eyes crinkle around the edges when he thinks something is particularly funny and the way he grins at Dean, making sure he got the joke, too. 

After a few episodes, Sam scoots closer, laying his head on Dean’s shoulder and forgetting all about the vaguely pretty girl from third period and her stupid laugh. Dean wraps his arm around Sam, forcing Sam’s face into Dean’s sweet-smiling t-shirt, but Sam doesn’t mind. 

The smell is familiar, loving, and welcome, however, and Sam simply buries his face further against Dean’s stomach, smirking at the way it makes Dean shift on his seat. 

~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Dean watches Sam breathe puffs of white breath into the frigid winter air before shifting his gaze to the diner across the street. Sam fidgets with the edge of his hat, pulling it over his ears. Dean hears him rubbing the sleeves on his jacket, trying to regain some of the warmth that had leaked out of him long ago.

“This is stupid, Dean,” Sam whispers, shivering under his thin fleece coat. 

“Dad told us to wait, Sam,” Dean reminds, letting his eyes flick over Sam’s lanky frame. In the last few years, he’s gotten taller; almost as tall as Dean is now, yet every time Dean looks at Sam, he’s surprised to see a nearly-grown teenager instead of his little Sammy. 

“It’s below freezing,” Sam deadpans, clenching his freezing fists. 

Dean isn’t much better off, wearing only his hooded sweatshirt for warmth, but he won’t complain, not when Dad’s told them to do this. 

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” Dean whispers, hoping he’s right. Sam, however, snorts.

“We’re going to freeze to death by then,” Sam chatters, his teeth clacking against each other. “Let’s just go to a hotel, Dean. We can call him and leave a message, right? It’ll be fine, and we get to live.”  
Dean turns to look more squarely at Sam, at the way his eyebrows are scrunched together in complete frustration, the way his fingers have turned a pale color along with his lips. Something begins warring inside Dean, with his father’s words ringing in his mind. 

“C’mere,” Dean murmurs, pulling Sam’s chilly body against his own. Sam grumbles something against Dean’s sweatshirt, but it’s lost in the folds of the cotton as Dean rubs his hands over Sam’s back, trying to get some heat flowing through him again. Dean feels an anxious tug on his stomach, knowing that Sam needs to get inside as soon as possible. Once again, their father has left them stranded, alone, and has, once again, showed Dean how incapable he actually is of taking care of his baby brother.

Sam grins against the soft fabric, proud that his show of hypothermia worked. All Sam wants nowadays is to be close to Dean, feeling his strong arms wrapped around him and his breath playing over his hair. He knows it’s wrong, but it seems so right each time he tricks Dean into doing it.

Sam can’t help the little tug in his stomach when Dean stretches and that band of skin peeks out from under his shirt. Sam can’t help that when Dean walks around after a shower, not wanting to get dressed, Sam has to think about Bobby completely shirtless to avoid his head downstairs from getting any ideas. Sam can’t help that, with Dean rubbing his back and whispering promises, he falls asleep completely, dreaming of curling up with Dean in front of a fireplace. 

Dean only notices Sam’s slumber when a breathy, “Dean,” escapes Sam’s lips. Dean’s hand halts, halfway down Sam’s back, and, suddenly, Dean never wants to let go. He wants to hold his brother forever, wants to feel Sam wiggling underneath him, wants to taste Sam’s kiss-

The rumble of the impala interrupts Dean’s thoughts.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~

“Move your pretty ass over, Sam,” Dean grunts, quietly, trying to get into bed without waking their father. Sam groggily shuffles closer to the wall, making barely enough room for Dean to slide under the covers. With this arrangement, Sam’s side is pressed directly against Dean’s.

Since that night in the cold, Dean has not forgotten that small exhalation from Sam’s lips, and it has been put to proper use in all of Dean’s fantasies. Lying in the dark, sharing a bed with Sam, is the worst part of the day for Dean. He is overly aware of Sam’s breathing, Sam’s skin, Sam’s smell, and he hates himself for it. He shouldn’t think about Sam like that. His job is to keep him safe, not completely screw him up. 

“Do you really think I’m pretty?” Sam mumbles, turning his head to face Dean. His hair drags across the pillow case, and, even in the dark, Dean can see it’s a static mess, flying away from his head. Even though Dean hasn’t moved since he got in bed, once woken up, it’s very difficult for Sam to fall asleep again, leaving him time to think about Dean and his perfection. 

“Uh,” Dean whispers, caught completely off guard. He tries to pull himself out of the sleepy fog he’d already drifted in to. “Look, Sam, if this is about girls or something, can’t it wa-“

“It’s not about girls,” Sam insists, fiddling with the edge of the blanket. “Do you really think I’m pretty?” Suddenly, Sam feels uneasy. Maybe he’s pushing this too far; maybe he’s been imagining Dean’s eyes lingering on him; however, maybe, Dean won’t think anything of this. 

Sam’s heart hammers in his chest, as Dean thinks of how to answer this. He feels his pulse pick up its pace as he tries to figure out Sammy’s angle. “Uh,” Dean stalls, trying to lengthen the time where he hasn’t completely fucked everything up yet. “Yeah, you’re pretty.”

“Not as pretty as you,” Sam mumbles, content with his small victory and nuzzling his head into Dean’s shoulder. He breathes the clean scent of Dean’s skin for a moment before Dean shifts, brushing his chest against Sam’s arm. 

“Sam, you’re,” Dean starts, letting a deep breath out, hoping this goes well. “You’re fuckin’ beautiful. I don’t understand why you don’t see it. Fuckin’ beautiful.” 

Something warm spreads in Sam’s chest because Dean thinks he’s cute. Before his courage can back down, Sam pushes himself up on his elbows, pressing his lips primly against Dean’s. Dean gasps, only caught off guard for a second, before he begins kissing Sam back, running his tongue against Sam’s lips. 

Too soon, Sam’s arms are too tired, and he falls back against the pillow, breathless and perfectly content. Dean slips his arm around Sam’s slim waist, pulling him closer. He buries his face in Sam’s long hair, not sure where this is going, but loving it all the same. 

When they wake up in the morning, Dean’s arm is still draped across Sam, and Sam’s eyes are open, watching Dean sleep. 

“Don’t let go,” he whispers, rubbing his nose against Dean’s shoulder.


End file.
